Don't get me wrong, I enjoy having a crew to hangout with, hit the bars with and bounce shit off of, but I am also very comfortable with being alone.

I've always been that way.

If I arrive to a city where I don't know a soul, I'll have to go out to bars and clubs solo. And after much trial and error, I think I've finally figured out how to do it without looking like a rapist or serial killer.

"Things are going really well for me," he said, sipping his coffee. "I'm making around $2000 a month!"

John was from Texas. He had moved down to a small, touristy town in Central Mexico about 10 years back, and was now working as a tour organizer/driver, transporting Americans and Canadians around to various historical and cultural sites in the region. He was about 50 years old.

Wow, I thought. You could live like a king in Mexico on $2000 a month.

Through John, I was able to meet a number of foreigners living in this Mexican city.

Well, I've been here almost two weeks now and to be honest I'm having a few doubts as to whether or not I made the right choice.

"First Impressions" isn't quite an accurate title - this is actually my third time visiting Lima - but the other two stints I did here were short, and I was mostly focused on eating ceviche, getting smashed on pisco and trying to get pussy (noble pursuits, I know). I stuck exclusively to two neighbourhoods, Barranco and Miraflores, and didn't even really take the time to do currency conversions to determine what anything costs. In short, I really just skimmed the surface.

But now that I've got a bit of a feel for the place, I'm beginning to wonder if I really want to commit to several months here. Perhaps my two previous times here on 'vacation mode' have given me an inflated impression of how good Lima is.

With 2017 just kicking off and having just arrived to a new country (scroll to the bottom to find out where), I wanted to take some time to talk about my future plans. I've been doing some soul-searching during these last few months in Canada, and I've come to a few conclusions and made a few decisions. In short, I'm hoping 2017 will be the start of a new trajectory.

But, we can't know where we're going without thinking about where we've been. And since I don't talk about myself much on this blog, here's some of the things that happened to me in 2016.

This person could be from the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia or Denmark. He’s 6’2” and has dirty blonde hair. He has an average build, not chiseled but not fat. He’s your average twenty-something male.

In his home country, he struggles with girls.

He’s had a few failed relationships, and a couple of random hookups here and there, but a Don Juan he is not. Let’s say he’s been with seven women in his life.

I copied the following reddit post by Noblepeasant5. Basically, it explains how the initial bliss of a move to Latin America (in this case, Central American) expat give way to a gnawing sense of paranoia and neurosis with the passage of time. Personally, I think the lad is trolling a bit -- I would not be surprised if he hasn't even been to Central America. However, he does expose one very ugly side of expats which is rarely discussed. I'll get to that later.